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The Great War (1914-1918) Forum

Remembered Today:

Lloyd George, Admiral Wemyss and the Armistice


serreroad

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Any armistice experts out there?! I remember watching/reading somewhere many years ago about the bitter disagreement between Lloyd George and Admiral Wemyss over the timing of the Armistice. I have recently trawled the net to try to fill in the gaps and the best I can find is:

"Although it was signed at 5 am, the terms of the agreement didn’t come into effect until six hours later at 11 am. The hour was chosen by Admiral Sir Rosslyn Wemyss, First Sea Lord and Britain’s official delegate to oversee the Armistice. He was explicitly ordered by his Prime Minister David Lloyd George to delay the terms until 3 pm to coincide with parliment sitting so that PM could get the credit of announcing it officially to the house on the hour. Weymss thought the delay would cause unnecessary killing and decided that the eleventh hour would add to the poignancy of the date. Lloyd George was furious.

But the story I heard had more detail. I'm sure LG took a bitter dislike to Wemyss as a result of this "snub" and failed to recognise his achievements post war in the same way that Hague, etc were recognised (ie honours, grants of titles, land & money, etc). Can anyone shed any further light on this? I'm not a big fan of LG, not least because of this incident, but I'd like to know I have my facts straight!

Thanks in advance.

Mike

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Wouldn't put it past LLG but have no evidence either way. By the way why was he granting honours to the capital of the Netherlands?

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Doh... It's late and I never woz much gud at spelin...

The extract I posted above would imply that there was certainly a spat between the two men.. I'd just like to know how far LG was prepared to take it.

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